How to be Happy, Minus the Envy and Comparison | Melissa Kruger | Matthew 20 | Word First

welcome to the live like it's true podcast here on the show my guests and I talk through some of the most interesting and astonishing stories of the Bible and then we ask how can we live like this story is true I'm your host Shannon pkin I am an author a speaker and a Bible teacher and here on the podcast I'm inviting you to think of these stories in the Bible as containers for truth each one gives you a new way to reject the lies to rear curse the truth and to invite other people to do the same so I hope that this episode is going to inspire you to better know the story share the story and live like the story is [Music] true In the comparison series we're talking about the stories Jesus shared and the conversations he had with people who were comparing just like we do and if you find these conversations helpful and I have no doubt that you will I hope you'll check out the original comparison girl study along with my brand new Teen version of this book co-authored with Lee n Heist titled comparison girl for teens thriving beyond measure in a world that compares is there a teen girl in your life that you love come check out the fun quizzes and information that we have for her and for you at comparison girl.com now let's jum jump into our conversation about comparison here in season 7 on the live like it's true podcast Melissa Krueger welcome to live like it's true thanks for having me I'm so excited to have just the chance to have a conversation with you um we've gotten to meet a couple times in person and I just so admire all the work that you're doing um let me just for our listeners give a quick snap out of what you do you are the vice president of discipleship programming for the Gospel Coalition um you're the author of multiple books including the Envy of Eve finding contentment in a Covetous World um your husband Mike is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary and you've got three kids so you know a couple things about comparison and coveting right oh I know all too well all too well from per lots of personal experience I'm yes me too yeah and we were chatting just before we hit record about how like comparison is not a new problem your book The Envy of Eve tell us how was that the first sin what did comparison have to do with Eve's sin yeah well comparison is always kind of rooted in in our desires we see something that someone else has or we see something that's prohibited to us and we wonder why and and so for Eve it was something prohibited to her you this is the one thing she couldn't have I mean you know we have to laugh at ourselves she was in a perfect garden she had perfect perfect existence she had a perfect spouse like imagine had a perfect spouse great and she had perfect relationship with the father and yet still she looked at the one thing she couldn't have and she had to have it yeah and and honestly when you look through the course of scripture it's really tragic um how much the sin plagues the people of God up until I mean we see it in the The Narrative of Jesus I mean and it it says specifically that pilate understood that it was because of envy that the chief priest turned Jesus in Pilot could read the room yeah um you know and he could say oh I get What's Happening Here you guys are jealous of Jesus and so they killed him and so we think this is a little that's really not a big deal but really the course of scripture highlights it's kind of a hot mess it is right the whole story is wrapped in comparison you know and part of Satan's temptation of Eve is she wanted to be like God that's a comparison word right so she she saw in herself I want to be like him it is a problem and in my book comparison girl we looked at these upside down statements of Jesus like the last will be first the the greatest is the Ser the servant whoever puts themselves first will be last you know all these sorts of upside down statements and what what I found interesting is that if you back up and look at the context Jesus is consistently responding to people who are comparing themselves in a whole variety of different ways and and he responds by saying well my kingdom is different we're going to be talking about one of these stories that Jesus told somebody who was comparing so I'm going to have you read it here in just a second Melissa but I want to kind of set the background it comes right on the heels of the rich young man coming to Jesus and saying Hey I want to be one of your followers I want to have I want to have eternal life and Jesus tells them you know go give everything away and then come follow me and the guy walks away sad because he can't he has too much it's too much to give up and then Peter turns to Jesus and he's like hey um that guy wouldn't give everything up but we have I mean the we're the ones we gave up everything we left it all behind we're following you you know what are we going to have he ask Jesus and Jesus response is you're going to be rewarded like a h hundredfold like that is Extreme generosity right and you're gonna have eternal life like if the question is will God reward me the answer is an astounding yes and then Jesus inserts a but um he says many who are first will be last and last first and this is and then he tells this story and he he puts the statement at the end too many who are last will be first and first last so it's one of those inclusos where he's telling a story that's sandwiched between these two statements and so as you read the story I just want all of us to be listening for any first last language all right would you read Matthew 21-16 in the ESV translation for the Kingdom of Heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire labor for his Vineyard after agreeing with the laborers for a daus a day he sent them into his Vineyard and going out about 9:00 a.m. which is the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace and he said to them you go into the vineyard too and whatever is right I will give you so they went going again about 12: to 300 p.m. the 6th hour and the 9th hour he did the same and about 5:00 p.m the 11th hour he went out and found others standing and he said to them why do you stand here Idol day they said to him because no one has hired us he said to them you go into the vineyard too and when the evening came the owner of the vineyard said to his Foreman call the laborers and pay them their wages beginning with the last up to the first and those hired at 5: PM about the 11th Hour came each of them received Daenerys and when those hired first came they thought they would receive more but each of them also received a Daenerys and on receiving it they grumbled at the Master of the House saying saying these last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us and have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat but he replied to them friend I am doing you no wrong did you not agree with me for a Daenerys take what belongs to you and go I chose to give this last worker as I give to you am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me or do you begrudge my generosity so the last will be first and the first last so what's interesting here like what makes this a story wortht telling yeah I think it's really interesting because you can feel it these guys are out working in the vineyard all day the timing's very specific you know I mean they've been and and they even say you I kind of I hear their Grumble when they say um burden of the day right eat I mean right now it's hot where I am and like I was outside just getting in my car yesterday and that felt like a labor you know and so when you are working in the scorching heat and you've been working all day you you kind of it gives this image of oh you know this is hard labor it's not sitting in an air conditioned office um doing doing the work so you kind of you do feel for these labors right when you feel like you're giving out yeah grumbling also though look at how Jesus has them starting at different times like that's weird right you know if he just told a story there was a guy who paid his workers that wouldn't be a good story right the way that I'm picturing the story is like the master of the vineyard goes to some place where workers Gather in the morning and he needs workers not for the whole year but just during this Harvest Time you know and so they're they're standing there and they get hired but I don't think it's normal to keep going back you know he goes back early in the morning then 9:00 a.m. then 12:00 p.m. then 3 p.m. and then again at 5:00 P p.m. yeah I mean it doesn't even make sense you you're thinking was there that much work left to be done and the story doesn't tell us that it just tells us he goes back and gets them and you know you're thinking for one hour what why we don't know we yeah we don't know yeah like this isn't a story about hiring and you know practices or wages or any of that it's the whole point of the story is to get us to the point where the guys who got there last the 5m workers they get paid first you know remember that's what we're looking for in the story is the last and first first and last and so what's surprising about what they get they get the full day's wage and so a daaras in that time was a day's wage like that was a typical thing that you'd be paid and that's what they're paid and they worked an hour so that's the huge surprise of the story like that's what we're supposed to notice well then the guys who've been there like we mentioned under the burden of the hot sun the scorching you know the sweat of their brow now I kind of wonder if like if the master had paid the first first Maybe maybe if you paid the 6 a.m. workers first well then they'd be dismissed and they wouldn't notice I feel like the story is set up so that the guys who started first are looking down the line oh man you know those 5m workers they got paid a whole day's worth what are we gonna get right uhuh they're already spending it right like they're standing in line oh good if they got paid that much this guy's really generous so what's he GNA pay me right and and I mean isn't that kind of what Peter's doing you know Jesus is responding Peter's already spending I love that image like he's already spending his kingdom rewards right yeah yeah well in earlier Matthew 18 they've the disciples already been asking who's the greatest yes you they're already like well can I sit to your right and your left when I when you come into your kingdom so they're already playing comparison games right well and if you think about these 12 disciples like they were the ones who were passed over like they're not Pharisees they're not Chief priests they're not religious leaders they weren't chosen you know so they went into like common trades like Fisher they're Fisher dudes right and suddenly they've been elevated to like their Disciples of this Rabbi they're following him and what they're going to get 12 Thrones like this is amazing Jesus is reversing all of this but he's like in My Kingdom you you just have to understand it's not like what you're picturing there's something about this that's different there's something in our hearts that we even in this new kingdom we get back to measuring and comparing and Jesus is like hold up you know yes in the world you're all about measuring up getting ahead you're it's all about comparing with somebody else how do I measure up but it's not like that in the kingdom of God yeah and you know I bet at the beginning of the day they felt so good that they were chosen at 9:00 a when they were asked to come they're like see I knew I'd get picked I'm a big guy I can take out more than those people and so who's left at 5:00 pm the SC like the people who no one else picked all day no other people picked yeah and so what they had lost is the joy of being chosen you that they had been picked for the work at hand and I always think back to David the psalm when he says I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked yeah this is David the king and he said just let me be a doorkeeper because what he understood in that moment was all I want is to be near to God yeah you know and so often these people at the beginning of the day probably felt really great about getting to come to the vineyard because they knew it would sustain them and by the end they've lost that they feel like they've earned something rather than hey I'm so thankful yes the story does uh contrast like the ones who were standing idle all day and the ones who've borne the burden of the day in the scorching heat and it seemed as though a value statement was made about the first ones and now it doesn't seem fair right they have this working assumption that wait that guy I've been here long longer look at the comparison words in what they say these 6 a.m. workers he starts with the 5:00 p.m. ones they get a full days wage he backs up and pays you know the 3 P.M ones the 12: p.m ones the 9:00 a.m. and then he gets to the 6: a.m. and so at this point they're expecting they thought they would receive more that's a comparison word right they've built this expectation in their mind and then when they turn to the forem and they were like these last they only worked one hour and you have made them equal to us so those are more and equal those are comparison words and that is what Jesus is going after here he has set up this whole story to get us to look at this moment where some people thought they deserved more because they worked longer and you're exactly right they're not the happy ones in the story like the one the 5 PM workers they're the ones who are overjoy they're like oh my goodness I got a full day wage that's a really beautiful picture there yeah and your statement about it's not fair we were talking before this and I said you that's when I grew up with I had one sibling so you spend your life in life isn't fair life isn't fair I mean because you know when they're just two of you especially I feel like I have I have three kids and so they do it less because I think it's harder to do it but with one you're always looking did you get half a brownie more than me was yours a little bit bigger than mine oh my goodness it's not fair and so we we we do that constantly and I can remember my mom saying well life isn't fair yeah that was that was the statement we heard it and it was interesting when my husband and I first were dating and we were talking a lot about Grace and just different concepts of it I can remember feeling like why is it fair that I grew up in a Christian Nation and got to hear the gospel and all you know whatever but also the reality of the Gospel is that it's extremely not fair right meaning in my favor so it changed my tune that life isn't fair in my favor and that's actually what this passage really is pointing us to is that we're all the 11th Hour workers that the work the person who bore the Heat and the scorching burden of the day was Jesus he did all the work and so if any other comparison of oh I've been walking with the Lord no you're you're thankful you get to be in the house of God for the years of your life it should be a totally different scenario but we often think it's not fair as though what we've been given is a bad thing but we get all of Christ righteousness he for everything we are the person standing there at 5:00 p.m. we are not the person who started working at 9:00 am even though we might feel like that we might put ourselves in that place our works don't save us his Works earn everything that we get and then we walk in the blessing and when we live in that it changes everything yes because every other comparison becomes an embarrassment honestly like when I look at you and I um say well you know Shannon has this great house that I wish I had I was telling you how much I like your wall behind you she got that really cool background you know whatever we might do I mean it becomes that trivial like if I told you today I'm gonna give you a million dollars because we did this podcast and then I'm gonna say well I'm doing a podcast with somebody else tomorrow I'm gonna give them a million dollars in one penny I don't think you'd be bothered I think you'd say that's totally fine but we live on the pennies bothered by what Sarah gets because we've been given eternity yes and it's like we've actually lost sight of the million because we fight over the pennies constantly oh that's so good and that's where I think we lose our joy yeah and I love how you turned it on its head by saying like we didn't deserve anything like the kingdom of God is not about people getting what they deserve the kingdom of God is about people getting what they don't deserve right and Peter and all the disciples like they're getting so much that they do not deserve I was just having a conversation with my son last night he was a camp counselor this week and had all these conversations some of the arguments the kids were raising up against the gospel was well how about those people who they didn't grow up in a place where they got to hear so this isn't fair and we just talked about how like Romans 1 is all about we are without excuse like because we all have seen creation we know there is a God that we should bow the knee to him and so none of us have an excuse and by God's Rich Mercy you know these kids were at a camp where they got to hear this good news and they got to they have an invitation into the kingdom instead of receiving this beautiful gift they're saying well yeah but what about those guys like they're comparing and talking about what's fair and that's exactly what's going on in this in this uh story that Jesus has set up this grumbling sideways comparison it's not fair and yet what about any of this is fair yeah it's never fair right you've been given the million dooll ticket into the kingdom and not only that you're gonna H you're gonna sit on Thrones he took you from a fisherman to give you a throne you know and you're going to be rewarded for anything you left behind Beyond just entrance in you get these rewards a h hundredfold rewards like extravagant and yet if you're G to enter that Kingdom and you know because the kingdom is already here at hand and if we're going to be Kingdom people who look down the rad at church and say it's not fair Jesus is like you know you're completely missing the point right at the end of the story The Master it's like he pulls aside this guy who is grumbling and it says friend I am doing you no wrong I just picture him looking into his eyes like he's beseeching him like come on now you know didn't we agree am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me like that's really at the heart of comparison is who gets to [Music] decide God's promises are like a set of parentheses es the first one is when he makes the promise the second one is when he keeps it and you never have one without the other but often there's this long stretch between the two much longer than we first imagined right that's what we see in Sarah's story found in Genesis 12- 21 God promised a son but in this wide stretch between the parentheses she wondered would God keep his promises could he I'm Shannon pokin inviting you to come find the answer to those questions both for Sarah and yourself in my brand new six-week Bible study titled shaped by God's promises lessons from Sarah on fear and faith find out how you two can be shaped by God's promises in the [Music] waiting that's right and you know I don't know if you have read the CIS Narnia Trilogy it's it's the one I think it's the H's boy um there's a scene with as the great lion and he's talking to this boy Shasta And Shasta is concerned about someone else and how the lion is dealing with someone else and you know aen looks at him compassionately and he says I tell people no no story but their own yeah basically I am working with you on your story yeah don't worry about somebody else's story yeah and I love that you brought up that CS Lewis quote I think what CS Lewis has in mind is another story about Peter after Jesus returns you know after he's risen from the dead and then they go for this little walk on the beach and Jesus is telling Peter hey you're gonna die like you're G to be led somewhere you don't want to go and basically you're you're going to lose your life just like I did and throughout all of the gospels Peter's consistently sideways glancing comparing with the other disciples then again even after Jesus died on the cross Peter turned and he sees John behind him what about him like what's going to happen to him what's his story and Jesus is like what is that to you you follow me we are individually following Jesus wherever he has led us whether it involves a 6 a.m. worker the scorching heat of the day uh a lot of Demands or a 500m worker where we're just like oh my word he's given me so much I haven't been able to give like I wanted to like maybe it's someone who comes to fa late in life or they're not able to serve in some way that they wish they could they're like me whatever your story is just called to follow him and be like what this is so generous it's the million dollars we need to focus on not the pennies you may be called to go live a life as a missionary and you could be sitting there grumbling and complaining about people who are living in certain cities in America and like yeah did he call you here then go maybe he called you to be a public school teacher that's what I was called to do at the beginning and I mean it's long hours it was not glorified work that's what I was called to didn't matter if I compared myself to my friends who were working at the bank and making really good salaries and had great lunches and yeah I'm in the like high school cafeteria I was called to be in the public school system and that's where I was called as a teacher and so it you we often look at what other people are doing oh you do inner city work oh you're in the suburbs like who gets called to the sub some people do get called to the suburbs exactly but it just doesn't matter we're so tempted to value or not value what other people do to make ourselves feel like our work's more significant whatever we do to the comparison needs to stop and say I'm being called by the Lord and what he's called me to do and wow what peace is there yeah when we just follow him yeah you know stop looking at everybody else around instead it transforms from comparison to and anger to oh one joy in my own work and I can actually now encourage my friend in theirs yes yeah it gets rid of the barriers between us right of pulling back either in superiority or inferiority that's what we do when we compare that's right yeah right and I think too our comparison game is always always full of blindness we just don't know what is really going on with other people you know I worked in women's ministry for 10 years in the local church and it was exhausting going to church during those years because I knew what was on the other side of the fence and it was rough and so you know we we see this outside surface level Instagram story level of people or we see a Facebook post and we think well their life's perfect um never forget one instance of this I'm going use two different names in this story um I was friends with a a woman who was single we'll call her Catherine and she was really struggling we were going into this social Gathering she was really struggling with her life situation and she looked at her friend we'll call her Susan Susan and she said well Susan's finally gotten everything she wanted you know she has been praying for this baby for so long why does she get the baby and I'm still single what she didn't know Susan had told me the week before that the week before she gave birth she found out her husband had been unfaithful oh and so here she is with this baby at the social gathering for stack like everything's fine yeah and this other person is actually looking into her life saying it's perfect and it's breeding this discontentment and she has no idea what she's comparing um no idea at all and I think that's one of the biggest problems of our comparison game we're always comparing and we we don't know and here's where but the difference of trust is when I look at the Lord and sometimes our circumstances are harder than other people's when I look at the Lord and I'm I say you know my clay you know exactly who I am better than I know you know exactly how deep the waters I can go through are right you know what I can bear and I entrust this suffering or this hard to you I don't need to see well it looks like she's she's only got two feet that she's having to tread through I feel like I'm about to drown yeah it doesn't really matter because based on her Constitution and who she is that might be like drowning to her thankfully it's not up to us it's up to the Lord right and in everything all of those hard Waters he's always fashioning us and shaping us so it's it's really it really does get to our view of God and how he's running things and comparison will cause us to question that yes it causes us to break the two greatest Commandments it breaks our relationship with the Lord and that we don't trust him so we don't love the Lord because we're we're constantly questioning are you good enough to me and it breaks our relationship with our neighbor because they just become a measuring stick of God's love like you're just my comparison person rather than look oh how can I encourage you right it's what do you have that I don't how is that proving to me that God's not good enough to me right it's a terrible way to live but we do it yeah it is and I love that you brought up that we're not seeing clearly because that last question that the master says to the worker is or do you begrudge my generosity literally it means or is your eye evil because I am good like that that evil eye thing it's like a an idiom that they would use to talk about you don't even see the person beside you correctly you can't even see the good in this like this 500m worker I mean I just picture the guy so excited and looking over at the master like you gave me this there's this beautiful moment between the master and what they've received and then the 6 a.m. workers are like oh that makes me so mad if you're not comparing there's so much to rejoice in you get to rejoice in that baby that was born that's right you also get to rejoice in singleness that your friend gets to experience or working as a high school teacher or working in inner city or working in the suburbs if we're not getting out our measuring stick and we all get to enter this Kingdom it's not about how much sweat did you put out versus what I did you know we all are just like what we all get this million dooll what this is amazing um so Melissa we always like to look at these stories and ask like how does this correct something that's broken in the world how does this correct the false narratives do you have any thoughts yeah I think a couple things I mean but the first thing I I do think that we can be very works baced and we think our works are what earn us yes eternity um and I do think the Lord Jesus is speaking in this passage to to say Hey you know y'all are all those last those 5m workers and just be thankful for that and and so I think we tend to live like well if I obey you God then you should make my life go this way right and most of us wouldn't admit it don't really believe in the Prosperity Gospel but we sometimes functionally do yeah and I think we continually struggle well I've been good God I didn't do those terrible things why are you blessing her and not me and I think it's a a deception that gets into all of our hearts at some level even we've been walking with the Lord for a long time yeah in my own heart the things I'm often wrestling with is but didn't I do everything right why is this happening to me yeah and it's this functional Prosperity Gospel that I'm living it's so true it's like our reactions really reveal that we don't believe the true story is true or we're not rooting our lives in the true story you know to the extent that we're looking at God and saying that's not fair she got that or like why didn't I get this thing that I deserve you know to the extent that we're saying that we are rooting our lives in this whole world system that's all about Measuring Up and elbowing past each other and you know you have to get ahead that's what the world says but that's not the way of the Kingdom you know and I've experienced that myself like I remember speaking somewhere and there were it was like a conference and there were a bunch of speakers and so there were two other mainstage speakers and and then the next year the other two were invited back and I wasn't and I'm like well what did I do wrong like that's humiliating right like no I get to serve the Lord in whatever way he invites me to whether as a 6 a.m worker a 5 P PM worker it is not about measuring and maybe the Lord has some other assignment for me this year maybe it's to serve my family that weekend and neither one is better than the other we all just get to serve right that's exactly right and I remember that when I had young children because I was at home when they were little and I can remember you know it was potty train season cleaning up a lot of mistakes let's just put it that way and thinking why did I get a degree to do this like what yeah kind of like is this my life and like and it it didn't feel like the dream let's just put it that way you know and and I I remember just feeling like just like the Lord was making it very clear to me you're serving me now just as much as you were serving me when you were teaching those kids or when you were leading that Bible study yeah it's how you do it are you bearing the fruit of love joy peace patience kind of like are you are you living by the spirit as you clean up kid pea that's all over the house exactly wiping noses and bottoms right are you are you able to do this for me are you able to stand on a stage and teach a thousand women for me right are you able to take out the trash for me are you all of it rather than compare it it's who it's for that makes it worth something yeah you know like if if we were told hey like a royal was coming to your house and you were like you'd be so excited to take out your trash because this important person was coming yeah and that's how all of our labors for the kingdom are you know we're we're serving the god of the universe and so it they all have inherent dignity and worth because he has called us whether it's putting a Band-Aid on a little one or whether it's again standing on a stage and teaching a thousand women both have value part of the Kingdom that's so good every task has inherent value and worth because of whom we're serving it's we're serving the lord Jesus our our Lord and our master um so what would change I guess in our lives if we lived like the story is true you know the next time we're tempted to look sideways and glance like what can we hold on to in this story that helps us live like it's true I mean if I really lived like this was true um I would stop trying to earn God's favor and then or maybe even stop trying to earn the life I want yeah and rather receive the life he's giving me with joy and just be a lot more at peace I think I just hear and this is our Christian circles so much oh why is she doing that why is she doing yeah just this unkindness is is all I can say and I think it's rooted in I have to put someone down so I can feel like I'm On Top true rather than just being okay with being the last because Jesus says the last are going to be first yeah yeah I love what you just said just having peace like getting rid of that striving and that angst and that drivenness to like well I have to produce that is not rooted in the Kingdom it's just this contentment I mean we're still working there's still sweat on our brow right all of the vineyard workers were working yet there's a peace in knowing like yeah I'm serving the lord and this is my assignment for today I remember talking with a woman who would like to have been speaking for a larger group in a more I don't know what she considered a more prestigious environment and instead she was um serving women who were incarcerated and she was asking like how do I grow like how do I get past this and go do that over there and I was like you know time out look what you're doing what you are doing has inherent worth and value because you're serving the lord Jesus but there's nothing less than about this work that you're doing as the kingdom workers we all get to find this inherent worth and value in what we're doing because we're serving the master who sent us out into his V Vineyard to work right that's right and I I think if we really remembered we're part of a body and and even you know in the scriptures that talk about that they talk about that comparison you know the hands gonna look at the foot do I really need you what good are you if you think about cutting your foot off yeah we do need you and so I I think all of us understanding that none of us needs to be what the others doing yeah but we need to encourage and be glad the others doing what they're doing that's so good there would be just so much more peace and unity and appreciation of one another and support for one another which I think we all need yeah yeah comparing down as a you know maybe a tongue to a foot like that's wrong comparing up as a foot to the eye like that's wrong neither one there's no place for that kind kind of comparison in the kingdom of God we are one body we have one head Jesus is our head and we all serve at the pleasure right we just do whatever he has given us he's crafted us we're his clay like you said he's molded us maybe we're a finger maybe we're an eye maybe we're an ear it doesn't matter we're all needed and we all have great value in this work that we're interested so Melissa thank you so much for joining us this has just been such a rich fruitful conversation it's been so great to be with you thanks for having me can I just remind you that each of these stories from the Bible is absolutely true rather than giving us a list of facts to memorize about himself God gave us a book filled with stories and each one helps us to know him and to understand this overarching story that we are all in so I hope that you'll take some time looking at this story in your Bible to help you study I've put together my free live like it's true workbook which includes my false narratives watch list my story elements bookmark and more live like it's true is part of the ReSound podcast Network for more gospel centered resources visit ReSound media. CC we've got that link for you along with links to any of the other resources that we've mentioned in the show notes thanks so much for joining me and now it's time to go live like it's true [Music]